All eyes on Glover prize

THE WINNER of the 2018 Glover Prize, selected from a record 405 entries, will be announced this afternoon.

The prize is deemed Australia’s most prestigious landscape art prize with a $50,000 reward and a bronze sculpture of the prize’s namesake — colonial artist John Glover — for the winner.

First place is awarded to the work judged the best contemporary landscape painting of Tasmania completed in the previous 12 months. Although the Glover Prize attracts entries from across the world, 26 of the 42 finalists were by Tasmanians.

First-time Glover Prize curator Megan Dick said the standard of art in Tasmania is “very high”.

“I think there are a lot of practitioners and I think Tasmania is a very cultural society,” she said.

Ms Dick said the entries this year are more expressive than in previous years.

“There are a lot more expressionist and abstract works, rather than the celebration of the picturesque and realist images of the landscape.”

The Hanger’s Choice Award winner was selected on Wednesday and went to Kylie Elkington for her oil paint on linen work titled Correa Alba.

The Glover Prize winner will be announced at a ticketed event tonight. An exhibition of the finalists will be held from March 10-13 and from March 17-18, at the Falls Park Pavilion in Evandale.

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